I haven't seen/paid attention to him enough to know for sure, but Zielinski seemed better to me too. Stood out more and was more consistently involved throughout the game. Saponara, on the other hand, tends to not do much for most of the game but makes a couple of very nice passes/plays and that too not in every game.
I was actually hoping we'd sign one of Andre Gomes and Dahoud (preference in that order before, have no preference now) before we became heavily linked with AG, and now, we're linked with both of them which is great....if this La Stampa rumor is true. Can't think of any other good, young versatile mids who can play as B2B, regista, and AM though.
AG has better technique. Dahoud runs more, is better defensively, and is younger. Being 20 means he wouldn't count towards the squad size limit. A Dahoud-Marchisio-Pogba midfield would also be more balanced than A.Gomes-Marchisio-Pogba.
Pereyra might be replaced with a U21 AM/LW.